"Marvell, who had both pleasure and success, who must have enjoyed
life if ever man did, ... found his happiness in the garden where he
was."--From an article in _The Times Literary Supplement._
Mrs. M'Cosh remained extremely sceptical about the reality of the
fortune until the lawyer came from London, "yin's errand to see Miss
Jean," as she explained importantly to Miss Bathgate, and he was such an
eminently solid, safe-looking man that her doubts vanished.
"I wud say he wis an elder in the kirk, if they've onything as
respectable as an elder in England," was her summing up of the lawyer.
Mr. Dickson (of Dickson, Staines, & Dickson), though a lawyer, was a
human being, and was able to meet Jean with sympathy and understanding
when she tried to explain to him her wishes.
First of all, she was very anxious to know if Mr. Dickson thought it
quite fair that she should have the money. Was he _quite_ sure that
there were no relations, no one who had a real claim?
Mr. Dickson explained to her what a singularly lonely, self-sufficing
man Peter Reid had been, a man without friends, almost without
interests--except the piling up of money.
"I don't say he was unhappy; I believe he was very content, absolutely
absorbed in his game of money-making. But when he couldn't ignore any
longer the fact that there was something wrong with his health, and went
to the specialist and was told to give up work at once, he was
completely bowled over. Life held nothing more for him. I was very sorry
for the poor man ... he had only one thought--to go back to Priorsford,
his boyhood's home."
"And I didn't know," said Jean, "or we would all have turned out there
and then and sat on our boxes in the middle of the road, or roosted in
the trees like crows, rather than keep him for an hour out of his own
house. He came and asked to see The Rigs and I was afraid he meant to
buy it: it was always our nightmare that the landlord in London would
turn us out.... He looked frail and shabby, and I jumped to the
conclusion that he was poor. Oh, I do wish I had known...."
"He told me," Mr. Dickson went on, "when he came to see me on his
return, that he had come with the intention of asking the tenants to
leave The Rigs, but that he hadn't the heart to do it when he saw how
attached you were to the place. He added that you had been kind to him.
He was rather gruff and ashamed about his weakness, but I could see that
he had been touched to receive kindness from utter strangers. He was
amused in a sardonic way that you had thought him a poor man and had
yet been kind to him; he had an unhappy notion that in this world
kindness is always bought.... He had no heir, and I think I explained to
you in my letter that he had made up his mind to leave his whole fortune
to the first person who did anything for him without expecting payment.
You turned out to be that person, and I congratulate you, Miss Jardine,
most heartily. I would like to tell you that Mr. Reid planned everything
so that it would be as easy as possible for you, and asked me to come
and see you and explain in person. He seemed very satisfied when all was
in order. I saw him a few days before he died and I thought he looked
better, and told him so. But he only said, 'It's a great load off my
mind to get everything settled, and it's a blessing not to have an heir
longing to step into my shoes, and grudging me a few years longer on the
earth.' Two days later he passed away in his sleep. He was a curious,
hard man, whom few cared about, but at the end there was something
simple and rather pathetic about him. I think he died content."
"Thank you for telling me about him," Jean said, and there was silence
for a minute.
"And now may I hear your wishes?" said Mr. Dickson.
"Can I do just as I like with the money? Well, will you please divide it
into four parts? That will be a quarter for each of us--David, Jock,
Mhor, me."
Jean spoke as if the fortune was a lump of dough and Mr. Dickson the
baker, but the lawyer did not smile.
"I understood you had only two brothers?"
"Yes, David and Jock, but Mhor is an adopted brother. His name's Gervase
Taunton."
"But--has he any claim on you?"
Jean's face got pink. "I should think he has. He's _exactly_ like our
own brother."
"Then you want him to have a full share?"
"Of course. It's odd how people will assume one is a cad! When Mhor's
mother died (his father had died before) he came to us--his mother
_trusted him_ to us--and people kept saying, 'Why should you take him?
He has no claim on you.' As if Mhor wasn't the best gift we ever got....
And when you have divided it, I wonder if you would take a tenth off
each share? We were brought up to give a tenth of any money we had to
God. I'm almost sure the boys would give it themselves. I _think_ they
would, but perhaps it would be safer to take it off first and put it
aside."
Jean looked very straight at the lawyer. "I wouldn't like any of us to
be unjust stewards," she said.
"No," said the lawyer--"no."
"And perhaps," Jean went on, "the boys had better not get their shares
until they are twenty-five David could have it now, so far as sense
goes, but it's the responsibility I'm thinking about."
"I would certainly let them wait until they are twenty-five. Their
shares will accumulate, of course, and be very much larger when they get
them."
"But I don't want that," said Jean. "I want the interest on the money
to be added to the tenths that are laid away. It's better to give more
than the strict tenth. It's so horrid to be shabby about giving."
"And what are the 'tenths,' to be used for?"
"I'll tell you about that later, if I may. I'm not quite sure myself. I
shall have to ask Mr. Macdonald, our minister. He'll know. I'm never
quite certain whether the Bible means the tenth to be given in charity,
or kept entirely for churches and missions.... And I want to buy some
annuities, if you will tell me how to do it. Mrs. M'Cosh, our
servant--perhaps you noticed her when you came in? I want to make her
absolutely secure and comfortable in her old age. I hope she will stay
with us for a long time yet, but it will be nice for her to feel that
she can have a home of her own whenever she likes. And there are others
... but I won't worry you with them just now. It was most awfully kind
of you to come all the way from London to explain things to me, when you
must be very busy."
"Coming to see you is part of my business," Mr. Dickson explained, "but
it has been a great pleasure too.... By the way, will you use the house
in Prince's Gate or shall we let it?"
"Oh, do anything you like with it. I shouldn't think we would ever want
to live in London, it's such a noisy, overcrowded place, and there are
always hotels.... I'm quite content with The Rigs. It's such a comfort
to feel that it is our own."
"It's a charming cottage," Mr. Dickson said, "but won't you want
something roomier? Something more imposing for an heiress?"
"I hate imposing things," Jean said, very earnestly "I want to go on
just as we were doing, only with no scrimping, and more treats for the
boys. We've only got £350 a year now, and the thought of all this money
dazes me. It doesn't really mean anything to me yet."
"It will soon. I hope your fortune is going to bring you much happiness,
though I doubt if you will keep much of it to yourself."
"Oh yes," Jean assured him. "I'm going to buy myself a musquash coat
with a skunk collar. I've always wanted one frightfully. You'll stay and
have luncheon with us, won't you?"
Mr. Dickson stayed to luncheon, and was treated with great respect by
Jock and Mhor. The latter had a notion that somewhere the lawyer had a
cave in which he kept Jean's fortune, great casks of gold pieces and
trunks of precious stones, and that any lack of manners on his part
might lose Jean her inheritance. He was disappointed to find him dressed
like any ordinary man. He had had a dim hope that he would look like Ali
Baba and wear a turban.
After Mr. Dickson had finished saying all he had come to say, and had
gone to catch his train, Jean started out to call on her minister.
Pamela met her at the gate.
"Well, Jean, and whither away? You look very grave. Are you going to
tell the King the sky's falling?"
"Something of that kind. I'm going to see Mr. Macdonald. I've got
something I want to ask him."
"I suppose you don't want me to go with you? I love an excuse to go and
see the Macdonalds. Oh, but I have one. Just wait a moment, Jean, while
I run back and fetch something."
She joined Jean after a short delay, and they walked on together. Jean
explained that she was going to ask Mr. Macdonald's advice how best to
use her money.
"Has the lawyer been?" Pamela asked, "Do you understand about things?"
Jean told of Mr. Dickson's visit.
"It's a fearful lot of money, Pamela. But when it's divided into four,
that's four people to share the responsibility."
"And what are you going to do with your share?"
"I'll tell you what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to take a house
and fill it with guests who will be consistently unpleasant, as the
Benefactress did. And I'm not going to build a sort of fairy palace and
commit suicide from the roof like the millionaire in that book _Midas_
something or other. And I _hope_ I'm not going to lose my imagination
and forget what it feels like to be poor, and send a girl with a small
dress allowance half a dozen muslin handkerchiefs at Christmas."
"I suppose you know, Jean--I don't want to be discouraging--that you
will get very little gratitude, that the people you try to help will
smarm to your face and blackguard you behind your back? You will be
hurt and disappointed times without number.... You see, my dear, I've
had money for quite a lot of years, and I know."
Jean nodded.
They were crossing the wide bridge over Tweed and she stopped and,
leaning her arms on the parapet, gazed up at Peel Tower.
"Let's look at Peel for a little," she said. "It's been there such a
long time and must have seen so many people trying to do their best and
only succeeding in making mischief. It seems to say, 'Nothing really
matters: you'll all be in the tod's hole in less than a hundred years. I
remain, and the river and the hills.'"
"Yes," said Pamela, "they are a great comfort, the unchanging
things--these placid round-backed hills, and the river and the grey
town--to us restless mortals.... Look, Jean, I want you to tell me if
you think this miniature is at all like Duncan Macdonald. You remember I
asked you to let me have that snapshot of him that you said was so
characteristic and I sent it to London to a woman I know who does
miniatures well. I thought his mother would like to have it. But you
must tell me if you think it good enough."
Jean took the miniature and looked at the pictured face, a laughing
boy's face, fresh-coloured, frank, with flaxen hair falling over a broad
brow.
When, after a minute, she handed it back she assured Pamela that the
likeness was wonderful.
"She has caught it exactly, that look in his eyes as if he were telling
you it was 'fair time of day' with him. Oh, dear Duncan! It's fair time
of day with him now, I am sure, wherever he is.... He was twenty-two
when he fell three years ago.... You've often heard Mrs. Macdonald speak
of her sons. Duncan was the youngest by a lot of years--the baby. The
others are frighteningly clever, but Duncan was a lamb. They all adored
him, but he wasn't spoiled.... Life was such a joke to Duncan. I can't
even now think of him as dead. He was so full of abounding life one
can't imagine him lying still--quenched. You know that odd little poem:
"'And Mary's the one that never liked angel stories,
And Mary's the one that's dead....'
Death and Duncan seem such a long way apart. Many people are so dull and
apathetic that they never seem more than half alive, so they don't leave
much of a gap when they go. But Duncan--The Macdonalds are brave, but I
think living to them is just a matter of getting through now. The end of
the day will mean Duncan. I am glad you thought about getting the
miniature done. You do have such nice thoughts, Pamela."
The Macdonalds' manse stood on the banks of Tweed, a hundred yards or so
below Peel Tower, a square house of grey stone in a charming garden.
Mr. Macdonald loved his garden and worked in it diligently. It was his
doctor, he said. When his mind got stale and sermon-writing difficult,
when his head ached and people became a burden, he put on an old coat
and went out to dig, or plant or mow the grass. He grew wonderful
flowers, and in July, when his lupins were at their best, he took a
particular pleasure in enticing people out to see the effect of their
royal blue against the silver of Tweed.
He had been a minister in Priorsford for close on forty years and had
never had more than £250 of a salary, and on this he and his wife had
brought up four sons who looked, as an old woman in the church said, "as
if they'd aye got their meat." There had always been a spare place at
every meal for any casual guest, and a spare bedroom looking over Tweed
that was seldom empty. And there had been no lowering of the dignity of
a manse. A fresh, wise-like, middle-aged woman opened the door to
visitors, and if you had asked her she would have told you she had been
in service with the Macdonalds since she was fifteen, and Mrs. Macdonald
would have added that she never could have managed without Agnes.
The sons had worked their way with bursaries and scholarships through
school and college, and now three of them were in positions of trust in
the government of their country. One was in London, two in India--and
Duncan lay in France, that Holy Land of our people.
It was a nice question his wife used to say before the War (when hearts
were lighter and laughter easier) whether Mr. Macdonald was prouder of
his sons or his flowers, and when, as sometimes happened he had them all
with him in the garden, his cup of content had been full.
And now it seemed to him that when he was in the garden Duncan was
nearer him. He could see the little figure in a blue jersey marching
along the paths with a wheelbarrow, very important because he was
helping his father. He had called the big clump of azaleas "the burning
bush." ... He had always been a funny little chap.
And it was in the garden that he had said good-bye to him that last
time. He had been twice wounded, and it was hard to go back again. There
was no novelty about it now, no eagerness or burning zeal, nothing but a
dogged determination to see the thing through. They had stood together
looking over Tweed to the blue ridge of Cademuir and Duncan had broken
the silence with a question:
"What's the psalm, Father, about the man 'who going forth doth mourn'?"
And with his eyes fixed on the hills the old minister had repeated:
"'That man who bearing precious seed
In going forth doth mourn,
He, doubtless, bringing back the sheaves
Rejoicing will return.'"
And Duncan had nodded his head and said, "That's it. 'Rejoicing will
return.'" And he had taken another long look at Cademuir.
Many wondered what had kept such a man as John Macdonald all his life in
a small town like Priorsford. He did more good, he said, in a little
place; he would be of no use in a city; but the real reason was he knew
his health would not stand the strain. For many years he had been a
martyr to a particularly painful kind of rheumatism. He never spoke of
it if he could help it, and tried never to let it interfere with his
work, but his eyes had the patient look that suffering brings, and his
face often wore a twisted, humorous smile, as if he were laughing at his
own pain. He was now sixty-four. His sons, so far as they were allowed,
had smoothed the way for their parents, but they could not induce their
father to retire from the ministry. "I'll give up when I begin to feel
myself a nuisance," he would say. "I can still preach and visit my
people, and perhaps God will let me die in harness, with the sound of
Tweed in my ears."
Mrs. Macdonald was, in Bible words, a "succourer of many." She was a
little stout woman with the merry heart that goes all the way, combined
with heavy-lidded, sad eyes, and a habit of sighing deeply. She affected
to take a sad view of everything, breaking into irrepressible laughter
in the middle of the most pessimistic utterances, for she was able to
see the humorous side of her own gloom. Mrs. Macdonald was a born giver;
everything she possessed she had to share. She was miserable if she had
nothing to bestow on a parting guest, small gifts like a few new-laid
eggs or a pot of home-made jam.
"You know yourself," she would say, "what a satisfied feeling it gives
you to come away from a place with even the tiniest gift."
Her popularity was immense. Sad people came to her because she sighed
with them and never tried to cheer them; dull people came to her
because she was never in offensive high spirits or in a boastful
mood--not even when her sons had done something particularly
striking--and happy people came to her, for, though she sighed and
warned them that nothing lasted in this world, her eyes shone with
pleasure, and her interest was so keen that every detail could be told
and discussed and gloated over with the comfortable knowledge that Mrs.
Macdonald would not say to her next visitor that she had been simply
_deaved_ with talk about So-and-so's engagement.
Mrs. Macdonald believed in speaking her mind--if she had anything
pleasant to say, and she was sometimes rather startling in her frankness
to strangers. "My dear, how pretty you are," she would say to a girl
visitor, or, "Forgive me, but I must tell you I don't think I ever saw a
nicer hat."
The women in the congregation had no comfort in their new clothes until
Mrs. Macdonald had pronounced on them. A word was enough. Perhaps at the
church door some congregational matter would be discussed; then, at
parting, a quick touch on the arm and--"Most successful bonnet I ever
saw you get," or, "The coat's worth all the money," or, "Everything new,
and you look as young as your daughter."
Pamela and Jean found the minister and his wife in the garden. Mr.
Macdonald was pacing up and down the path overlooking the river, with
his next Sunday's sermon in his hand, while Mrs. Macdonald raked the
gravel before the front door (she liked the place kept so tidy that her
sons had been wont to say bitterly, as they spent an hour of their
precious Saturdays helping, that she dusted the branches and wiped the
faces of the flowers with a handkerchief) and carried on a conversation
with her husband which was of little profit, as the rake on the stones
dimmed the sense of her words.
"Wasn't that right, John?" she was saying as her husband came near her.
"Dear me, woman, how can I tell? I haven't heard a word you've been
saying. Here are callers. I'll get away to my visiting. Why! It's Jean
and Miss Reston--this is very pleasant."
Mrs. Macdonald waved her hand to her visitors as she hurried away to put
the rake in the shed, reappearing in a moment like a stout little
whirlwind.
"Come away, my dears. Up to the study, Jean; that's where the fire is
to-day. I'm delighted to see you both. What a blessing Agnes is baking
pancakes It seemed almost a waste, for neither John nor I eat them, but,
you see, they had just been meant for you.... I wouldn't go just now,
John. We'll have an early tea and that will give you a long evening."
Jean explained that she specially wanted to see Mr. Macdonald.
"And would you like me to go away?" Mrs. Macdonald asked. "Miss Reston
and I can go to the dining-room."
"But I want you as much as Mr. Macdonald," said Jean. "It's your advice
I want--about the money, you know."
Mrs. Macdonald gave a deep sigh. "Ah, money," she said--"the root of all
evil."
"Not at all, my dear," her husband corrected. "The love of money is the
root of all evil--a very different thing. Money can be a very fine
thing."
"Oh," said Jean, "that's what I want you to tell me. How can I make this
money a blessing?"
Mr. Macdonald gave his twisted smile.
"And am I to answer you in one word, Jean? I fear it's a word too wide
for a mouth of this age's size. You will have to make mistakes and learn
by them and gradually feel your way."
"The most depressing thing about money," put in his wife, "is that the
Bible should say so definitely that a rich man can hardly get into
heaven. Oh, I know all about a needle's eye being a gate, but I've
always a picture in my own mind of a camel and an ordinary
darning-needle, and anything more hopeless could hardly be imagined."
Mrs. Macdonald had taken up a half-finished sock, and, as she disposed
of the chances of all the unfortunate owners of wealth, she briskly
turned the heel. Jean knew her hostess too well to be depressed by her,
so she smiled at the minister, who said, "Heaven's gate is too narrow
for a man and his money; that goes without saying, Jean."
Jean leant forward and said eagerly, "What I really want to know is
about the tenth we are to put away as not being our own. Does it count
if it is given in charity, or ought it to be given to Church things and
missions?"
"Whatever is given to God will 'count,' as you put it--lighting, where
you can, candles of kindness to cheer and warm and lighten."
"I see," said Jean. "Of course, there are heaps of things one could
slump money away on, hospitals and institutions and missions, but these
are all so impersonal. I wonder, would it be pushing and _furritsome_,
do you think, if I tried to help ministers a little?--ministers, I mean,
with wives and families and small incomes shut away in country places
and in the poor parts of big towns? It would be such pleasant helping to
me."
"Now," said Mrs. Macdonald, "that's a really sensible idea, Jean.
There's no manner of doubt that the small salaries of the clergy are a
crying scandal. I don't like ministers to wail in the papers about it,
but the laymen should wail until things are changed. Ministers don't
enter the Church for the loaves and fishes, but the labourer is worthy
of his hire, and they must have enough to live on decently. Living has
doubled. I couldn't manage as things are now, and I'm a good manager,
though I says it as shouldn't.... The fight I've had all my life nobody
will ever know. Now that we have plenty, I can talk about it. I never
hinted it to anybody when we were struggling through; indeed, we washed
our faces and anointed our heads and appeared not unto men to fast! The
clothes and the boots and the butcher's bills! It's pleasant to think of
now, just as it's pleasant to look from the hilltop at the steep road
you've come. The boys sometimes tell me that they are glad we were too
poor to have a nurse, for it meant that they were brought up with their
father and me. We had our meals together, and their father helped them
with their lessons. Indeed, it's only now I realise how happy I was to
have them all under one roof."
She stopped and sighed, and went on again with a laugh. "I remember one
time a week before the Sustentation Fund was due, I was down to one
six-pence And of course a collector arrived! D'you remember that,
John?... And the boys worked so hard to educate themselves. All except
Duncan. Oh, but I am glad that my little laddie had an easy time--when
it was to be such a short one."
"He always wanted to be a soldier," Mr. Macdonald said. "You remember,
Anne, when you tried to get him to say he would be a minister? He was
about six then, I think. He said, 'No, it's not a white man's job,' and
then looked at me apologetically afraid that he had hurt my feelings.
When the War came he went 'most jocund, apt, and willingly,' but without
any ill-will in his heart to the Germans.
"'He left no will but good will
And that to all mankind....'"
Mrs. Macdonald stared into the fire with tear-blurred eyes and said: "I
sometimes wonder if they died in vain. If this is the new world it's a
far worse one than the old. Class hatred, discontent, wild extravagance
in some places, children starving in others, women mad for pleasure,
and the dead forgotten already except by the mothers--the mothers who
never to their dying day will see a fresh-faced boy without a sword
piercing their hearts and a cry rising to their lips, 'My son! My son!'"
"It's all true, Anne," said her husband, "but the sacrifice of love and
innocence can never be in vain. Nothing can ever dim that sacrifice. The
country's dead will save the country as they saved it before. Those
young lives have gone in front to light the way for us."
Mrs. Macdonald took up her sock again with a long sigh.
"I wish I could comfort myself with thoughts as you can, John, but I
never had any mind. No, Jean, you needn't protest so politely. I'm a
good house-wife and I admit my shortbread is 'extra,' as Duncan used to
say. Duncan was very sorry as a small boy that he had left heaven and
come to stay with us. He used to say with a sigh, 'You see, heaven's
extra.' I don't know where he picked up the expression. But what I was
going to say is that people are so wretchedly provoking. This morning I
was really badly provoked. For one thing, I was very busy doing the
accounts of the Girls' Club (you know I have no head for figures), and
Mrs. Morton strolled in to see me, to cheer me up, she said. Cheer me
up! She maddened me. I haven't been forty years a minister's wife
without learning patience, but it would have done me all the good in the
world to take that woman by her expensive fur coat and walk her rapidly
out of the room. She sat there breathing opulence, and told me how hard
it was for her to live--she, a lone woman with six servants to wait on
her and a car and a chauffeur! 'I am not going to give to this War
Memorial,' she said. 'At this time it seems rather a wasteful
proceeding, and it won't do the men who have fallen any good.' ... I
could have told her that surely it wasn't _waste_ the men were thinking
about when they poured out their youth like wine that she and her like
might live and hug their bank books."
Mr. Macdonald had moved from his chair in the window, and now stood with
one hand on the mantelshelf looking into the fire. "Do you remember," he
said, "that evening in Bethany when Mary took a box of spikenard, very
costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, so that the odour of the
ointment filled the house? Judas--that same Judas who carried the bag
and was a robber--was much concerned about the waste. He said that the
box might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor.
And Jesus, rebuking him, said, 'The poor always ye have with you, but Me
ye have not always.'"
He stopped abruptly and went over to his writing-table and made as
though he were arranging papers. Presently he said, "Anne, you've been
here." His tone was accusing.
"Only writing a post card," said his wife quickly. "I can't have made
much of a mess." She turned to her visitors and explained: "John is a
regular old maid about his writing-table; everything must be so tidy
and unspotted."
"Well, I can't understand," said her husband, "why anyone so neat handed
as you are should be such a filthy creature with ink. You seem
positively to sling it about."
"Well," said Mrs. Macdonald, changing the subject "I like your idea of
helping ministers, Jean. I've often thought if I had the means I would
know how to help. A cheque to a minister in a city-charge for a holiday;
a cheque to pay a doctor's bill and ease things a little for a worn-out
wife. You've a great chance, Jean."
"I know," said Jean, "if you will only tell me how to begin."
"I'll soon do that," said practical Mrs. Macdonald "I've got several in
my mind this moment that I just ache to give a hand to. But only the
very rich can help. You can't in decency take from people who have only
enough to go on with.... Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll see if Agnes is
getting the tea. I want you to taste my rowan and crab-apple jelly, Miss
Reston, and if you like it you will take some home with you."
* * * * *
As they left the Manse an hour later, laden with gifts, Pamela said to
Jean, "I would rather be Mrs. Macdonald than anyone else I know. She is
a practising Christian. If I had done a day's work such as she has done
I think I would go out of the world pretty well pleased with myself."
"Yes," Jean agreed. "If life is merely a chance of gaining love she
will come out with high marks. Did you give her the miniature?"
"Yes, just as we left, when you had walked on to the gate with Mr.
Macdonald. She was so absurdly grateful she made me cry. You would have
thought no one had ever given her a gift before."
"The world," said Jean, "is divided into two classes, the givers and the
takers. Nothing so touches and pleases and surprises a 'giver' as to
receive a gift. The 'takers' are too busy standing on their hind legs
(like Peter at tea-time) looking wistfully for the next bit of cake to
be very appreciative of the biscuit of the moment."
"Bless me!" said Pamela, "Jean among the cynics!"